Ghost Company on Kinteros
+++Kinteros system, Subsector Deus, Sector Deus, Segmentum Obscurus+++ +++095.342.M41+++ *Target identified* Turiel tightened his grip as he surveyed the information displayed in the scope: ‘Distance: 2484 – Elevation: 172 - Lateral wind speed: 6.3 – Longitudinal wind speed: 2.1 - Gravity: 8.67’ *Optimal targeting position displayed* Resting his cheek on the stock of his high-calibre weapon, Turiel adjusted his aim to overlap the crosshairs with a small red dot displayed slightly above and to the left of his target. As the crosshairs began to intersect with the dot, the rifle emitted a soft, approving beep: *Optimal targeting position attained* Turiel gently squeezed the trigger, activating the electrical current that surged down the barrel of the rifle, propelling a solid metal projectile to a speed in excess of 2500 metres per second. A fraction of a millisecond later, the projectile exploded out of the rifle with an ear-shattering roar and spit of flame, the shockwave so immense it shattered several nearby windows of the abandoned hab-block floor. Over two kilometres away, two men were meeting in the penthouse suite of the ‘Deus Grand Hotel Casino’, one of the most popular establishments on the planet. The first man was Colonel Ambrose Belmont, commander of one of the several mercenary regiments employed by Kinteros for protection and security, the other, Bishop Lias Severin, a high ranking member of the Iron Monks. Belmont stood with his back to the large windows dominating one side of the suite and was flanked by two large mercenaries, he spoke as Severin entered the room and approached: “Ah Lias, interested in some more.....business?” Severin did not reciprocate the amicable tone: “Belmont! You said those weapons would be more than enough!” “It’s not my fault your incompetent Militia buffoons couldn’t organise an ambush! I told you to hire mercenaries!” “Please you know such an act would be too obvious a violation of the Decree Passive, we’d all be executed overnight. Anyway, this is beside the point...we need more weapons. The failure on Varda has left us with precious little military power, the Order of the Bloody Tears shifted their support from us almost immediately after word got out we’d killed civilians, even though they were heretical dogs, pledging allegiance to Space Marine freaks.” “Of course we can provide, however it will be hard attaining that many Melta weapons again.” “That doesn’t matter, we just need something, anything to arm ourselves against the Eaglebearers, everywhere we go they hound us, it’s only a matter of time before they start picking off our undefended preachers.” *Optimal targeting position attained* “Okay Lias, we can arrange shipment of a few thousand Lasguns, these Kinteros idiots pay us far more than we ne-“ Belmont never finished his sentence as his torso disintegrated from the impact of the projectile. Severin had scarcely a microsecond to process his surprise before his own head was obliterated. One headless body and one pair of legs slumped to the ground as the gore-splattered mercenaries looked on in horror. After what seemed to them like an eternity they both dived onto the floor, and one of them managed to grab his radio and stutter into it: “R-raise the alarm! The Colonel and the Bishop have been murdered!” The reply came back fast: “By who?!” “I don’t know! A sniper!” Meanwhile Turiel was exiting the abandoned hab-block, having destroyed the bulky coil-rifle and its sizeable battery pack with a melta charge. Taking a moment to sample the humid night air, he replaced his helmet, drew his Bolt Pistol and faded into invisibility. Forging through the dark alleys and back streets of the Kinteros capital city he made his way towards his extraction point, the city spaceport. Within a matter of minutes, mercenaries all across the city were put on high alert as a ballistics expert traced back the path of the shot using the positions of the Bishop and Colonel at the time of death, and the sizeable hole made in the wall across from them. Tracing a line on a hologram of the city, it led straight to the hab-block where Turiel had been moments before. “He was here, it’s been abandoned for months after a large fire.” Belmont’s second in command, Major Teller barked out orders to his subordinates: “Alert the men stationed around this building, form a solid perimeter and tighten it, we’re gonna catch this bastard and find out who’s responsible for this!” Turiel was growing concerned, every alley or street he took was blocked off with serried ranks of mercenaries, forcing him to double back and find alternate routes. No matter where he went he couldn’t make any progress towards the spaceport. Soon, the mercenaries began moving down the night-darkened streets, closing the net on Turiel. Civilians refusing to yield to their march were struck down with stun mauls, the rest scattered into the buildings just in front of mercenaries smashing their doors down to sweep the rooms. With little other option, Turiel followed suit, darting into a seedy strip club as an impassable rank of heavily armed mercenaries approached. Taking great care to slip pass the bouncer without contact, Turiel entered the strobe-lit club and darted into a corner, hoping that none of the drunken, drugged patrons would come near him. Despite his every instinct telling him to purge the decadent, excessive clientele, he kept his weapon and his concentration on the door, filtering out the loud music and dancing women of the club. “Hey! You can’t ju-urrgh!” The stunned bouncer toppled through the curtain between the door and the club with a terrific crash as half a dozen mercenaries swarmed in, lasguns raised. The patrons ducked beneath their tables and the bare-chested women on-stage screamed and dived to the ground. As the one nearest Turiel did so her impractical stiletto struck a drink on the edge of the stage, spilling it all over the Revenant. Turiel held his breath and aimed at the mercenaries, painfully aware of how visible the translucent blue drink would be all over him. As they upturned tables and swarmed through the back-rooms, one of the mercenaries eventually inevitably approached Turiel, trying to concentrate on the strange looking shape in the corner behind the disorienting strobe-lighting. Moving towards it, the mercenary raised his Lasgun, glistening bayonet levelled at Turiel’s head. Scarcely a few feet away, the dull man finally discerned the shape outlined by the seemingly hovering liquid: “What the....oh fu-“ Turiel’s large knife entered the mercenary’s chin from beneath and carried on upwards, emerging from the top of his head and penetrating his helmet. Once again the strippers screamed in horror as the mercenary’s body fell to the ground and rapidly formed a growing pool of blood on the floor. The other five mercenaries charged towards Turiel’s position, blasting with their Lasguns, but were unable to draw a bead on him through his (partial) invisibility and the strobe-lighting. Turiel however was not so hampered. As chunks flew from the wall behind him his pistol roared five times, and the five mercenaries fell to the ground, dead. At that moment the music and strobe-lighting was finally shut off, and the scene was illuminated clearly. The patrons ran past the bodies in blind panic and tried to escape the club as more mercenaries, attracted by the gunfire, attempted to swarm in. Knowing the panicking civilians would only stop the mercenaries for a short time, Turiel deactivated his cloak and pointed his bolt pistol at one of the cowering strippers, a human-felinid hybrid, and spoke commandingly: “Direct me to an alternate exit!” Her frightened ears twitched as she pointed behind the stage: “Th-there’s a stairway in the dressing room!” Reactivating his cloak, Turiel leapt onto the stage, through the back curtain and into the dressing room, ascending a narrow spiral staircase located in the corner. It took him to a small office, the desk of which was piled with coloured powder and other illicit drugs. Ignoring the scene, Turiel opened the large window, a fire escape leading to the roof. As he made to exit a loud ping sounded from his left pauldron as a bullet ricocheted off it. The offender was a greasy man pointing a stub pistol from behind his desk, the establishment’s owner, he yelled out: “Who’s there?! You fucks have no right to come in here and destroy my club!” He continued to blindly fire his pistol, striking Turiel with the pitiful weapon several times. The Revenant strode over and swatted the heavy desk aside, revealing the terrified man and two of his naked employees. They all screamed as Turiel lifted him bodily up, and ceased suddenly as a bolt tore through his head. Turiel went back to the window and clambered out as the blood-soaked women scrambled away from the corpse, screaming. He clambered up the ladder towards the roof, but when he was about halfway up a mercenary poked his head from the window before yelling back inside: “She’s right, there’s a ladder here! It must have gone this way!” Several more mercenaries began hurrying up the ladder in pursuit, little knowing their invisible prey was still on it. Quickening his pace, Turiel reached the roof as the lead mercenary was just approaching the midpoint. Seizing the top of the ladder in both hands, Turiel wrenched it from its anchors in the wall and pushed it away. The mercenaries screamed as they plummeted several stories, most breaking several bones as they impacted the ground. Now on the rooftops, Turiel was once again free to move towards the spaceport, leaping from building to building above the swarming mercenaries in the streets. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before they realised he was on the roofs, and Turiel’s worries were confirmed when he heard the angry buzz of Vulture Gunships overhead. By now the mercenaries had learned their target was using some kind of cloaking system, so they had prepared accordingly. The gunships began releasing large canisters of ash from the city’s incinerators mixed with water, covering vast areas in the adhesive liquid. Turiel was bathed in it, and within moments the Vultures homed identified and homed in on him. Fortunately he was still fairly camouflaged against the ash-white roofs, but he would never make it to the spaceport, and the streets below were full of mercenary footsoldiers. His only option was the river flowing through the city. If he could reach it, he would be undetectable once more. The nearest Vulture let fly with its wing-mounted Punisher cannons, riddling the area with bullets. Turiel sprinted across the rooftops as the bullets kicked up ash all around him, it worked to his advantage, shrouding him further. Not to be discouraged, another Vulture unleashed its fragmentation launchers, the airburst rockets peppering Turiel with shrapnel. One piece managed to find his knee joint, slicing through and lodging itself in Turiel’s leg. Gritting his teeth, Turiel leapt forward and slid on his back to the edge of the roof, grabbing the edge as he went over and hanging there, concealed from the Vultures. Grimacing, he pulled the chunk of shrapnel out his leg and tossed it aside, then he pushed off the edge, across the alley and grabbed onto the adjacent roof. He hauled himself up and continued his sprint towards the river, with the gunships in pursuit More Vultures joined the chase and soon Punisher rounds were impacting Turiel’s armour as frag rockets detonated overhead. The river was close now, the revenant was on the final rooftop from the river, the gunship pilots finally realised Turiel’s goal. Determined not to let him escape, one fired a pair of hellstrike missiles. Turiel’s fine senses detected the hiss of the missiles’ rocket boosters and he responded with an almighty leap off the edge of the building, plummeting several stories into the massive river as the missiles detonated behind him, illuminating the night sky. As soon as Turiel splashed into the water the Vultures circled around his point of entry, firing into the river as the revenant rapidly sank to the bottom. Upon reaching the bottom, Turiel painstakingly strode towards the opposite bank through the sludgy riverbed, riddled with trash and waste from the city above. Arriving at the opposite side, he climbed up the concrete riverbank and hauled himself out of the water, cleaned of the sticky grime. Scrambling further up the wall he reached the top and lifted himself over, right onto the busiest promenade in the city. The whole area illuminated by the bright lights of the riverfront casinos, stretching in both directions for miles. Attracted by the distant explosions, people were watching the Vultures scanning the river, little knowing the gunships’ target was among them. Darting between the massed observers, Turiel slipped away from the scene and through the streets, towards the spaceport. Back in the ‘Deus Grand’, Major Teller was roaring down a phone: “He got through our net! Killed six of my men and crippled another four! Not even the gunships could take him....it...whatever, out!” The planetary governor replied: “Well be that as it may the assassination of a mercenary is of no concern to planetary authorities, I’ve already received reports of your thugs brutalising the people, this isn’t good for business! If people think we’re responsible for this then they’ll stop using our casinos, and if people stop using our casinos we’ll stop being the dominant power here! You know what that means for all your lucrative contracts Teller?!” “They’ll......be gone.” “Exactly, gone. You and your jarheads will be out of a job, and last I checked your doughy cutthroats have gotten far too comfortable here to go back to real war.” Teller panicked: “But we can’t let this thing get away! He might come for you next! This may all be a precursor to a planetary assault!” “A fact I’m well aware of Teller, fortunately for you we’re not as useless as your men! My intelligence officers tell me that, judging by his chosen routes thus far his most likely destination is the capital’s spaceport, it’s the only way someone would be able to enter of exit the planet undetected. Send your men there, and ONLY there, and wait for him. Remember, we need him alive so we can find out why he’s here.” Teller put down the phone. He was sweating. Unlike the planetary governor, he knew full well why the assassin had struck. Belmont’s illegal arms dealing was well-known to his immediate underlings, but they turned a blind-eye as long as they enjoyed its fruits. It was the only logical reason for the assassination of both the Colonel and the Bishop (whose death hadn’t been reported). Teller couldn’t let the assassin be captured, if the governor found out about the arms dealing going on behind his back, it would be the noose for all involved. He activated his vox and gave orders: “All units in the vicinity of the spaceport, deploy in ambush positions within. Shoot to kill.” It would be a simple enough lie to claim the assassin couldn’t be taken alive, these things happen. Teller just prayed the thing would actually go down. Within a few minutes, hundreds of mercenaries were entering the spaceport, civilians scattered before the heavily armed men, and the spaceport was soon cleared of potential bad publicity. They took positions throughout the spaceport, behind shop counters and checking desks, they bolted heavy stubbers into the floor and set up booby traps in the halls to weed out their invisible target. As Turiel approached the spaceport, it was patently obvious all was not as it should be. The usually busy spaceport was bereft of activity. Creeping inside, he detected poorly constructed booby traps at every corner, and clumsy mercenaries shuffling around behind their cover. With all shuttle transport from the spaceport cancelled, there was no way he could escape on the Arvus Lighter he entered the planet undetected in, clamped to the underside of a larger transport shuttle. If he tried to take off he’d be shot down before he made the upper atmosphere. The chapter had not anticipated that the planetary governor would go so far as to shut down the spaceport, after all, Kinteros made its entire income from tourists, what they hadn’t factored in was the governor’s excessive paranoia. The planetary governor sat in his office, surveying live security camera footage from the spaceport and muttering darkly: “Damn fools, can’t take down one assassin. I’ll bet it was that bastard Eames, been after this seat for years, knew Belmont supported me. Oh I’ll make this hitman squawk. Finally have enough to execute Eames and his whole family!” At that moment one of the governor’s underlings hurried in, face ashen: “Milord, you told me to dredge the archives of citywide security footage for anything relevant to the situation.” “Yes.” “Well I’ve had a hundred scribes reviewing videos non-stop since the incident. We discovered footage of Colonel Belmont and Major Teller, along with what appears to be a member of the Ecclesiarchy, entering an establishment a few months ago, but when we tried to access footage from the cameras inside the building, the records had been erased. There’s almost three hours of footage missing from our central database.” The governor was confused and agitated: “The.....the Colonel would have been able to delete the records.....but why? Send a team of enforcers to the establishment and seize their own data, even if it was wiped off the central archive it should still exist on local systems.” “At once milord.” Back at the spaceport, Turiel was contemplating his next move. Aside from the city spaceport there was no way to getting into orbit within 500 kilometres, the only option was to lay low and wait for the mercenaries to move on. He slipped into a maintenance corridor, deactivated his cloak and waited. As the hours drudged by the governor grew more and more restless. He snatched up his phone and called the Major: “Teller! Why haven’t your men detected him yet?!” “Because he’s not there. Face it, your intelligence men were wrong, he wasn’t aiming for the spaceport. We did find one thing, an unlicensed Arvus in the corner of one of the landing bays, probably how he got here, but he obviously doesn’t intend to use it again.” The governor cursed under his breath: “Dammit! He could be anywhere by now. Disable that lighter and remove your men from the spaceport, this delay has already cost me millions.” “How are we going to find him?” “How on Terra am I supposed to know?! If reports are to be believed we’ve got some ‘invisible’, giant assassin loose in the city, and judging by how fast the gunship pilots said he was moving, he could be halfway to the suburbs by now! There is no way to catch him. But we must step up security, who knows where he might strike next? I’ve already tightened security around my palace, but I want you to send a few companies of men to the orbital dock, and check anyone travelling alone and trying to leave.” “Yes governor.” Teller put down the phone and snapped at a nearby officer: “Captain! Take fourteenth, twenty-first and twenty-ninth companies up to the orbital dock, look for anyone leaving the planet, and travelling alone, and search them thoroughly.” With the spaceport cleared of mercenaries and once more operational, Turiel hurried back to his lighter and sat at the controls, ready to leave with the first shuttle. Grasping the steering console he attempted to activate the engine, only to be met with silence. Suddenly a warning illuminated the HUD: *Primary fuel pump defective – contact Techpriest immediately* Turiel silently cursed, Kurt had given him a basic rundown of engineering but even with the necessary parts such a job would take hours. This certainly wasn’t going to get him anywhere, leaving him only one option. The Captain oversaw his men shuffling into the vast shuttle destined for the enormous docking station above Kinteros, a buffer between the void and the planet designed to filter out smugglers and criminals. As the last squad entered in packed ranks, the cargo doors eased shut and the Captain signalled the pilots to take off. The massive transport shuttle fired its colossal engines and elevated from the landing bay. Surging up into the night sky, it was breaking through the upper atmosphere within a minute. Such acceleration was almost unnoticeable on the inside, thanks to dampening systems, but on the outside, Turiel had to cling onto the shuttle for dear life, his gauntlets digging into the metal surface. Just when he was certain the panel he was holding on to would tear free, the sky parted before him, replaced with the jet black void and billion stars of space. Within half an hour or so the shuttle began to approach the orbital dock, already host to a number of massive warp-capable transport ships bringing tourists from all over the sector to the tropical paradise world of Kinteros. It was one of these, scheduled to depart for Tachion Primaris in approximately six hours, in which Turiel would make his escape. The shuttle touched down in one of the dock’s colossal launch bays and the invisible Turiel carefully descended from the top of the shuttle, dropping silently down onto the bay floor as the mercenaries thundered from the craft, spreading throughout the station. With all exits from the bay filled with marching mercenaries, Turiel was forced to wait for them to completely vacate the area before he could leave. After a few minutes, Turiel was free to move. Exiting the bay, he made his way towards one the massive lounges where travellers wait for their ship. Keeping to the edges of the corridors, avoiding the bustling traffic of the station, Turiel eventually arrived at a floor of the expansive lounge. Food dispensaries and tax-free shopping stores lined the walls for several flights both up and downwards, and menacing mercenaries watched from every exit and entrance. “Hurry up or we’ll miss it!” Turiel sidestepped urgently to avoid a family rushing through, this place was far too busy to wait six hours in. Approaching the edge of his flight, Turiel peered down the floorless centre to the bottom floor several stories below. In contrast to the clean and bright aesthetic of his current floor and those above him, the lower flights were grimy and dim, with a similarly contrasting lack of activity. Turiel slipped into a stairway shaft and made his way down into the deep dark underbelly of the orbital dock. Emerging on the bottom floor to an unpleasant display of filthy clubs and bars, the home of transients, criminals and other assorted scum refused entry to Kinteros but unable to return home. Turiel found a dark, dirty corner between a cheap brothel and foul-smelling bar and hunkered down, deactivating his cloak to conserve power and waiting for the transport ship’s departure. Five hours passed uneventfully, with only a few drunken fools stumbling between the bar and the brothel. Turiel glanced at his chronometer, only an hour to go, it would take him at least half an hour to reach the transport gate from his current position, it was time to make a move. Reactivating his cloak, Turiel moved out of the dirty alcove and hurried to the stairway, easing the door open he darted through and began ascending the stairs. Before he’d even made a dozen steps loud voices echoed from above: “Why the fuck are you taking us down to this shithole Ellis?” “Cheapest drinks in the station dumbass, plus if anyone tries to mess with us we can just shoot them and no one will care.” The squad of mercenaries ambled down the stairs towards Turiel. With no way to slip by, the revenant was forced to retreat back down. He stood flat against the door as they approached him, but he had no choice but to go through. The mercenaries startled as the access door flew open in before them. Raising their lasguns, one mentioned to the rest: “The.....the doors not meant to be automatic is it?” “No.....” Immediately one mercenary at the back raised his voice: “It’s him man, he’s here, oh shit!” The leader swiftly silenced him: “Shut up idiot, how could it be, there was nothing there.” “Yeah James thought there was nothing at the top of that ladder before he fell fifty feet! You weren’t there!” “And neither were you moron! Nothing’s THAT invisible, James is just a fucking dipshit. A crippled dipshit.” “Then what opened the door?!” “Probably some druggies screwing with us, pulled the door open with wire or something.” The squad carried on through the door and stood in the frame, peering round the sides to find no potential culprits. The leader spoke once more, this time with a hint of concern in his voice: “Everyone move in, and seal the door.” The five men entered the floor and one swiped his keycard through the panel on the wall, locking the heavy metal door shut. “Alright....fan out and search the area.” The leader grabbed his radio: “This is Nial, potential situation on the bottom level of waiting area seven, am investigating.” The response crackled through: “Roger that Nial, alert us if support needed.” “What do you mean ‘if’? Send another squad now!” “This is a big station Sergeant, we’re spread thin as it is, and a dozen ‘potential situations’ pop up every ten minutes! Check it out, if it’s NOT drunken travellers causing trouble, make us aware.” The Sergeant swore colourfully and pocketed his radio, then joined his men in scouring the various establishments on the floor. Unbeknownst to all five, Turiel was silently watching from behind. He could kill all five with no more effort than he would a fly, but it would certainly cause another travel shutdown, and his way off the station would be gone. Indentifying the one who had locked the door, Turiel followed him as he entered one of the dank bars alone. The patrons, the conscious ones at least, were startled as the heavily armed mercenary entered, and the bartender raised his voice: “What the hell are you doing?! No weapons are permitted on this station!” The mercenary levelled his laspistol at the bartender: “Security forces asshole, now give me a beer.” The bartender grudgingly pulled a bottle out of the fridge behind him, opened it and placed it on the bar. The mercenary snatched it up, smiling cruelly, and took a swig. After a few minutes of threatening the bartender and other drinkers, he swaggered to the restroom, stopping midway to make a lewd remark at a drunken young women sitting at a table, only to have her drink thrown over him, he retorted with a backhand across her face and she slumped over the table, out cold. Once inside the bathroom, he stood at the urinal and whistled idly as he relieved himself, zipping up, he went to the sink and cleaned his hands. Looking in the mirror he smiled to himself, resolving to drag that upstart bitch into the bathroom and show her she messed with the wrong guy. Lowering his face to the sink, he splashed water in his face to wash off the sticky drink, lifting his head back up, he looked in the mirror once more. This time something in the background caught his eye, what seemed to be a bottle of hard liquor floating in air behind him: “What th-“ The bottle flew through the air and slammed into the side of his head, smashing completely and covering him in the pungent alcohol, he fell to the filthy bathroom floor completely unconscious. Turiel grabbed his keycard and slipped out, arriving at the stairway door just as the mercenary staggered out of the bar. The other four rushed to his cries: “What the fuck happened?” “I-....someone jumped me!” The Sergeant took a whiff and sneered: “By the Emperor, you stink of booze.” “No I wasn’t drinking! I was in the bathroom when....something, I can’t remember....” “Oh shut the fuck up Kisler. If you drink on duty again I’ll shoot you in the knee. Come on, we’ve still got places to check.” The unfortunate mercenary hefted his lasgun and fell back in with the squad. Meanwhile Turiel had slipped unnoticed into the stairway before relocking the door and sliding the keycard underneath it. With any luck the mercenaries would assume the keycard had simply been dropped by its incompetent carrier. Turiel made his way towards gate Gamma-seven, where the transport vessel destined for Tachion Primaris was docked. Darting through the broad access corridors between busy travellers, he arrived at the gate just a few minutes before boarding would close. He approached an overhanging light fixture against the wall, leapt up and grabbed it. Hanging above the crowd he scanned the room, several mercenaries were posted around the on-ramps filled with bustling tourists entering the colossal transport ship through enormous access doors. However, Turiel’s route on-board was in the cargo hold, which was being loaded on the ship by an enormous conveyor belt beneath the access ramps. At that moment the light fixture groaned agonisingly, and a moment later snapped from the wall. Turiel landed deftly but the metal frame clanged to the ground noisily. The nearest mercenaries were instantly alert, and began forcing their way through the bottlenecked tourists by the on-ramps. As the thuggish mercenaries approached, Turiel frantically sought an avenue of escape, when they were scarcely a dozen metres away he saw his opportunity, and took it. Sprinting down the side of the wall towards the ledge above the cargo conveyor, Turiel gave an almighty leap over the bustling crowd of people that had collected by the ledge as they shuffled towards the onramps. Seizing another light fixture firmly as he did so, he swung from it uninterrupted, sailed clear over the people, and plummeted down several metres onto the belt. He slammed heavily into the conveyor but was unnoticed by the cargo handlers as they attempted to negotiate a large crate onto it. Turiel let his head fall back against the conveyer and breathed a sigh of relief, letting the belt take him to his salvation. His momentary peace was shattered as the belt disappeared beneath, reaching the cargo hold, leaving him to crash headfirst into a pile of luggage: “Emperor dammit!” A few minutes later the enormous vessel released its clamps from the station and drifted into the void. Once it was a sufficient distance from the planet, a massive warp portal opened before it and it slipped inside, on its way to Tachion Primaris. ---- Back in the Kinteros governor’s palace, Major Teller was being frogmarched through the hallway to the governor’s office. The doors to the office parted before the Major and his Arbites escort and he was half-led, half-pushed into the room. The planetary governor turned away from his many observation screens and towards Teller, his words colder than ice: “Hello Major.” “H-.....hello Sir.” “You know, during that whole escapade last night, I assigned my men to scan archived security footage from across the city to try and find any images of the mysterious assassin. They concentrated on any footage of Colonel Belmont, reasoning the assassin may have watched him for some time. Whilst reviewing footage from about five months ago, they discovered one-hundred and sixty minutes of footage had been deleted from the central database, one-hundred and sixty minutes of Colonel Belmont, and you, inside a club with some unknown priest.” Major Teller was beginning to sweat, his hands shaking as the governor continued: “So of course we went to the source, a few Arbiters managed to persuade the owner of the club to overturn his own security data, data which Colonel Belmont was unable to delete. Would you like to see what we found Major?” Teller already knew the answer as the governor raised a remote and pushed play, the screens came alive with the recovered recording. It was a dark backroom from the club, Belmont and Teller were snorting lines of powder as two scantily-clad women danced on their laps. Across from then sat Bishop Severin, speaking sternly: “So you’re certain the shipment will reach us within the month?” Belmont stuffed more notes into his dancer’s thong before contemptuously replying: “Don’t worry Priesty, you’ll have your meltaguns.” Severin questioned once more: “And you’re sure it won’t be noticed?” The Colonel took a large gulp from his drink before he spoke: “Yes yes yes, the idiots at the governor’s office think they’re bandages or something, right Teller?” The Major took his face from his dancer’s chest long enough to reply: “Yes Sir, the crates are labelled as medical supplies for missionaries.” At that moment the governor paused the tape and turned to Major Teller, who by now was shaking uncontrollably, instinctively reaching for his confiscated sidearm: “It seems the good Colonel was doing some ‘under the table’ business with the Ecclesiarchy, which you were.....more than party to.” Teller stuttered: “I-i-i didn-.“ The governor offered him a contemptuous sneer as the Arbiters seized his shoulders: “Well it seems I have a public execution to plan, I’ll see you very soon Major!” Teller gave out a meek whimper as the Arbiters dragged him from the office and down into the dungeons beneath the palace, to await his final reckoning. The governor sat back down in his luxurious leather chair and turned back around to face the monitors, pressing a button on his remote which flicked the screens back to footage from his various casinos. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair, sighing contentedly as he surveyed his empire. Category:Stories Narratives and Fluff